I learnt Latin some yearns ago and I liked it very much, but I admit it's completely absurd to force students to study a language which isn't spoken anymore. And if you ask some teacher about the reasons to do that, they say that learning a language with a different structure is good for future understanding of other languages, then I wonder why they don't teach those other languages while students are young and learn easily...

Probably they want to teach you Latin so you have to learn only one word that is used in about 5-10 others. Which saves you a lot of time. Also the grammar structure is present in almost every (European) language.

Dennis wrote:Probably they want to teach you Latin so you have to learn only one word that is used in about 5-10 others.

You can get the same benefit from learning English. (Moreso, really, because how many languages use ut and quoque?)

Also the grammar structure is present in almost every (European) language.

Only to the extant the European languages have had their backs broken on the Procrustean bed of Latin-based grammatical prescription. The grammar of English is quite different from that of Latin--so much so that the continued use of Latinate categories and terminology is detrimental to understanding it. For instance, "I" is not the "nominative case" of the personal pronoun "me", which is why there's nothing wrong with saying "It's me". Only the interference of Latin makes anyone think that.

dtp883 wrote:Wth? Why? Most developed nations already have large English speaking majorities. Why impose a more complex and currently unused language on them. It would be smarter to force Mandarin, Spanish, or Arabic to be learned since they already have large speaking populations.

And why developed nations? Wouldn't it be harder to force a developed nation to do something. Third World Countries can be influenced much more easily with money. Then again why would developing countries want to learn a complicated language that won't help them prosper in the global arena?

Latin is quite simple really. And another thing, people should learn languages that are more complex than their native ones. And learn as many of them as possible. Humanity at this point is stupid as it always was and I say we should end this. No more simplification and more hard work, and hard studying. Down with the lazy bums!

Delodephius wrote:Latin is quite simple really. And another thing, people should learn languages that are more complex than their native ones. And learn as many of them as possible. Humanity at this point is stupid as it always was and I say we should end this. No more simplification and more hard work, and hard studying. Down with the lazy bums!

Whether Latin is "simple" or "complex" is all subjective. I can perform feats of syntax with English that would make a consul's head spin. The more important point is that it's simply not relevant to most people unless they're pursing a degree in Mediaeval Studies or a post at the Vatican. Learning Arabic, Chinese, or Korean is also a great deal of hard work and would have considerable practical benefits as well. (I probably don't have to remind anyone from the USA that the US government periodically updates list of "critical languages", for which special incentives have been offered; guess how many times Latin--or, indeed, any Latin-based language--has appeared on it. I daresay the situation isn't all that much different in the UK, Russia, or any other country.)

What I was aiming at was that people tend to look at language learning as something hard and thus refuse to go through it. If a language seems hard let's learn one that is easier. For and English speaker that would be Spanish or French (just counting those more international ones and which the bulk of the Anglophone population is familiar with). People prefer what seems easier to them over what seems more complex, from the starting point of their own language(s). I don't like this practice and I don't really know but does this in a way show the signs of a society in which education and learning is not valued enough and only continues with the dumbing-down of people that already know little about other things and not just languages. I still live in a society where polyglotery is in a way held in high esteem, given to the fact that most people my age can speak or understand at least three languages. But that's just my village, I don't know about the rest, or the World, and I care little about that.

I personally don't care much about languages that are popular, I'm actually interested in being a scholar of Antiquity and Medieval studies. I have little interest in modern languages, only as the means to read studies about old languages and history.

Delodephius wrote:What I was aiming at was that people tend to look at language learning as something hard and thus refuse to go through it.

Language learning is hard. And it makes perfect sense to refuse to submit to it if you judge that the ultimate benefits do not outweigh the huge amount of sustained effort it will take to succeed.

If a language seems hard let's learn one that is easier. For and English speaker that would be Spanish or French (just counting those more international ones and which the bulk of the Anglophone population is familiar with). People prefer what seems easier to them over what seems more complex, from the starting point of their own language(s).

Again, I would say they are quite rational to do so. If you're only learning a language because the educational system requires you to do so, what sense does it make to choose the hardest among the alternatives?

Remember, every hour you spend learning a language is an hour you don't have to learn software engineering or ballroom dancing or shred guitar or any of the dozens of other things which may interest you. None of these things are easy to master and preferring one to another isn't a sign of low intelligence or low ambition.

I don't like this practice and I don't really know but does this in a way show the signs of a society in which education and learning is not valued enough and only continues with the dumbing-down of people that already know little about other things and not just languages.

If anything, I think it demonstrates that people can be sharper when it comes to identifying their own best interests than so-called experts with a vastly different set of priorities.

From a rational point of view, it would be far better for me to learn Japanese than any of the last half dozen other languages I've studied. It would be directly relevant to my daily work in a way that these other languages are not. But Japanese doesn't appeal to me, so I resist learning it. It doesn't have much to do with how "difficult" it is--Literary Chinese is no cakewalk either--but with my personal interests and desires.

Last edited by linguoboy on Fri 09 Oct 2009 11:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Hmm, it seems we diverge on the point of rationality. I personally don't consider rationality to be important in doing something, no matter how hard. My view is that people should do things on the fact that they are hard even if it goes against their and/or other's interests. (Hmm, an interesting merge of my agrarian upbringing and the Balkan "inat" mentality.)

Delodephius wrote:Hmm, it seems we diverge on the point of rationality. I personally don't consider important something to be rational in order to do it, no matter how hard. My view is that people should do things on the fact that they are hard even if it goes against their and/or other's interests.

Yeah, I have to say that deliberately doing something hard which harms my interests or the interests of others I care about--let alone doing it simply because it is hard--is pretty much my definition of "irrationality".

How about if you don't care if it is hard? I mean, you do many hard things in life but you yourself don't care if they are hard, you just don't know any easier way and you have high tolerance for hardship. What if something being hard is irrelevant? That is about right how I was raised, that the difficulty of a certain task is irrelevant. Just the goal and the process of doing that task is relevant and what you learn through it. Also, whether it is rational or irrational as well is irrelevant. If I decide to learn some foreign and difficult language, I do it and don't care if it is difficult, and what will I do with it after, what good will come of it doesn't matter either, maybe it will prove useful, maybe not. If I had a plan, maybe then I would choose what language to learn, but again, the difficulty is of little importance. And then there is the cultural thing. Where I live learning a language is generally considered easy (it doesn't have to do anything with the reality of things) and failing to learn a language I started or quitting learning it because I found it hard would result in ridicule. In order to keep my mind off thinking about potentially getting ridiculed I ignore the difficulty of learning a language and just do it without complaining.